Second, is this fight meant to have taken place at the actual moment of the crucifixion, or does it take place on some other "recurring myth" plane? Because if it's the former, wouldn't Jesus suddenly breaking away from the cross and handing the Olympians their asses deviate from the whole "restrain divine power and die, then resurrect on the third day" plan? (At least there appear to be no human witnesses, which is consistent with the Gospel accounts saying that Joseph of Arimethea didn't turn up to take him down for burial until the evening.)

On the plus side, I like that "Jehovah" is referenced (in contrast to Zeus) as a God who loves humanity, as opposed to the usual popular-culture focus solely on the "RARR YHWH SMASH!" stuff from the Bible.

Like so much of Liefeld's work, this is simultaneously terrible, amazing, stupid, and brilliant.

It breaks from standard convention of comics in a way that all his other crap never managed to. (Whether it goes too far in the other direction, well, overcompensation happens.) It's so... HIM... in a lot of the ways that are amusing about Liefeld, and actually relatively few of the ways that aren't. If you wanted to pick a comic to show someone something that truly encapsulates Rob Liefeld without instantly making them hate him, this would be the comic to do it with.

Honestly? I think this is what he should do. Forget trying to work in the mainstream. Go back to the independent press, or an imprint or something, and write "The Second Coming". Do it just like this, riding that line between ridiculous and kinda cool... if he wants, let him take it serious, the rest of us can enjoy the resulting camp.

I really, honestly want to see Rob Liefeld write Jesus wandering the Earth, beating up false gods, idolaters, and those who take evil actions in God's name and occasionally proclaiming "I kick ass for the Lord!"

This is sooo offensive to pagans. And hell, anyone who actually respects what Jesus himself stood for. Even when he lived, people wanted him to lead a violent revolution, to "kick ass", and he taught peace, love, and endurance instead. And some of them killed him for it.

Nowadays, with him out of the way and no longer able to speak for himself, modern equivalents of those same violence-craving war-seekers turn his image to their cause of bigotry, xenophobia, revolution and civil war, judgementalism, hatred, social discord, war, and death.

One could easily be led to think that if they do meet him in the next world, they'll be quite unpleasantly surprised by what he has to say to them.

Actually, this particular (ridiculous) situation might not fall under Jesus' previously established boundaries of his particular brand of pacifism.

After all, in all Jesus' dealings of refusing to fight or refusing to lead a revolution were in the matters of man against man. Mortals exercising their free will against one another.

In this situation, Jesus is now faced with a bunch of false gods who want to fly in the face of free will and subjugate man, to take away man's right to choose. Remember, for Jehovah and Jesus, while a human can turn away from God's way and there will still be a price to pay later, that's later, and it's still the human's choice. If you did something these gods didn't like, them killing you on the spot is probably one of the more merciful fates awaiting you.

Jesus is not faced with mortals made by and granted grace by the Father, he's faced with callous immortals trying to take away that grace. Him kicking a little heathen deity ass is not necessarily sacrilegious.

As for offending pagans... Iiiiii don't know, I'm guessing that Rob figured he was pretty safe from offending anyone who worships this particular pantheon, since chances are they're either a few thousand years dead or 99.9% composed of rebellious posers who considered themselves much too individual to follow the fad of worshiping Egyptian gods and invented a deep spiritual connection with Artemis instead.

"Iiiiii don't know, I'm guessing that Rob figured he was pretty safe from offending anyone who worships this particular pantheon, since chances are they're either a few thousand years dead or 99.9% composed of rebellious posers who considered themselves much too individual to follow the fad of worshiping Egyptian gods and invented a deep spiritual connection with Artemis instead."

This is so offensive I don't even know where to start. I am not a "rebellious poser", and my goddess is Gaia. Other pagans I have known who have chosen god or goddess representations from this pantheon aren't either. How about you not call other people "rebellious posers" and I won't call you a "narrow-minded holier-than-thou sheep", sound fair to you?

See, the thing is, I wasn't insulting anyone's religion. I was insulting posers. I was insulting people whose requirements for a "religion" be that it is non-mainstream and suitably vague enough that they can have its "traditions" and values mean whatever they wanted to mean. There are many of these people out there. People who claim they worship the Egyptian pantheon, because Anubis is hawt. People who claim they worship gods who are more famous for their Dungeons & Dragons incarnations than any actual religion formed around them. People who believe stuff that the original practitioners admit "Yeah, I just made that shit up." People who think Neil Gaiman has written down exactly how the universe really works. People who claim to believe in crap they looked up on the internet because it's an easy way to a victim complex and snarling that teh Xtians are oppressin' dem.

You were the one who decided that I was lumping you in with the 99.9% of people worshiping a pantheon that, uh, your goddess isn't actually included in, to the best of my knowledge. You could have thought to yourself "Oh, well, I really believe. I'm the 0.1%. Because really there are a lot of fakes and posers out there."

But no, you had to go off on a little victimization crusade and claim that an agnostic was trying to be holier than you, and immediately jump right to foamy raeg because how dare someone not psychically predetermine what your beliefs were and just what statements regarding them might make you take offense. Why, it's almost as if you were in fact a poser and getting a little defensive because you perceived that you were being called on it. But naaaah, you have a firm and true belief in a vague concept of the planet's spirit, why would you immediately leap to victimization, insults, and snappishness?

I liked the bit about Zeus being pissed about Jesus's approach of loving mankind, as opposed to just whining about how he wasn't popular anymore. Too bad it was undermined by Jesus's response of kicking the crap out of the Olympians as opposed to finding a peaceful solution.